Raspberry Avalanche!

 

This is my raspberry patch. 

Obviously not very big it is singularly, the most weed infested and neglected patch on the peninsula.  Admittedly, I did fertilize it and cut out dead canes in earlier this year.  

2025 has been a record harvest. Doggo and I picked raspberries (again) yesterday; freezing everything we didn’t scarf.

By my estimate I have more than 3+ gallons of these gems in the deep freeze.

I already have plenty of homemade jam in the bunker. I can certainly make more.   I can also add these to a smoothie and my Irish breakfast porridge.

Judging from a couple of my Face Book pals there is likely a raspberry pretzel torte in my future....

Personal Kermis

Any of you who have paid a visit know that my raspberry patch is nothing to write home about.  It’s small, full of weeds and grass and survives only slightly above benign neglect.  Two varieties of raspberry varietals were planted 20 years ago - the types lost to memory.

Nevertheless, every spring I cut most of the dead canes and give it a good drench of Jung Seed Company ‘raspberry food’ from a watering can.

Summer production was steady; this fall it has been excellent.  This patch is an overachiever.

The birds obviously get first dibs but Doggo and I pick every couple of days or so - eating as we go. These are really good on vanilla ice cream.  Anything we cannot eat in short order is frozen. I think I’m up to 1.5 gallons of frozen berries. 

There is most definitely raspberry jam in our future.   Terrific stocking stuffers and hostess gifts.  Most importantly, a barter currency.

Raining today - double batch of homemade garden salsa is on deck….. 

The Garden Chronicles

As tough as gardening has been this year there have been several standouts.  Raspberries, asparagus and tomatoes.  Plenty of berries to pick and eat with the surplus frozen for the future.  You've likely been bored to tears with the spargel story.  And the tomatoes are doing terrific with red and yellow cherry varieties for snacking, San Marzanos for pizza and these beauties; all acquired from Sully's Greenhouse this spring.  

First time purchaser from this garden center and I guess I'll have to go back; namely because the heirloom beefsteak variety above can no longer be ID'd.  The name on the tag faded!  These are absolutely fantastic.

Anyway, my tomato plants are about half of prior years but the yield is good enough for some canning in my future.

Meanwhile there are BLTs to eat.

 Pretty good chow if you can get it.... 

Spargel Season

Three months ago I had a mild panic attack believing that my asparagus patch had given-up the ghost.  

Not so.  As it turned-out that bed continued to deliver fresh asparagus spears on a slow but sure basis for the next 3+ months allowing me the pleasure of fresh spargel a couple of times a week.

Me thinks this has been the last of it.

A couple of days ago I ate the last of this year's harvest along with a pork chop dinner.  

Just so you know, these bone-in, rib chops, from the local butcher shop, set me back $3.17.  A heckuva deal considering the price of groceries nowadays.

Fresh spargel sauteed in EVO and served-up with fresh-cracked pepper and sea salt really amped-up dinnertime. 

Same for baked tater and pan-seared venison, rare to medium rare.  Sauteed shrooms too.

Spargel season is short and sweet; and worth the patience.  Pretty good chow if you can get it..... 

Lazarus Asparagus

A couple months or so ago I figured my asparagus was done-for.  As it turns-out not so much.  For a while every day or so I'd pick a spear or three to keep my diet German.  And while things have been tapering-off I'm still picking enough to include homegrown spargel in the vegetable line-up on at least a weekly basis.

I swear - I get-up, pour a cuppa joe, look out the kitchen window and there it is.  I grows overnight! 

Pan-seared salmon, brown rice and you-know-who.

Pretty good chow if you can get it.   

Healthy too..... 

Give Peas A Chance

Picking, shucking, blanching and freezing peas.  Garden to freezer same day....

  

Winner, Winner.....

....whitetail dinner.

Pan-seared backyard venison (rare to medium), baked yam and freshly-picked spargel from the kitchen garden. 

A month or so ago I figured my asparagus was done-for.  As it turns-out not so much.  Every day or so I pick a spear or three to keep my diet German. 

BTW - my dog does all sorta tricks and commands for yam and spud skin treats. 

Pretty decent chow if you can get it.

Pro Tip: Rub your taters, yams and other tubers in bacon drippings before a hot bake in the convection oven. Trust me.....

Classic Sandwich Simplicity

  

There is nothing more elegant in its simplicity than the radish sandwich.  Hearkening back to my childhood this was a favorite of my father and remains a summertime indulgence of mine.  It is sublime.   

Ingredients:   

Garden radishes – sliced thin  

Two slices of bread - rye, sourdough, whole wheat 

Unsalted sweet cream butter – room temperature  

Sea salt  

Instructions:  

Slather each slice of bread generously with butter.   

Top with radish slices.  

Cracked sea salt over all to taste.  

Yields one sandwich.

 

 

You can learn more about radishes here...

The Garden Chronicles

After amending my crappy Door County soil that makes up my garden with four bales of peat moss and eight bags of composed manure I tilled it once before the rains came.  After it dried-out I rototilled it again.

May 15 - I planted peas, two varieties of radish and sowed three types of lettuce.

Peas emerged a couple of days ago...

click on image for a closer look

And the radishes peeked-out yesterday... 

 

 

Today I planted seven varieties of tomato plants - including a couple of San Marzano I scored at a new greenhouse; two basil, a rosemary and Italian parsley plant constituted the herbs.  This was followed by four sweet pepper and five broccoli plants.  I sowed a row of beets, green beans and an additional variety of lettuce.  Yes, fresh salads are in our future; fingers crossed.

If time allows; tomorrow I'll sow the pumpkins and cukes and whatever else trips my trigger.  When you live halfway between the equator and the North Pole the growing season is short.  Time's a wastin!

Vive le Jardin Magnifique!

Has Asparagus Ended?

Contrary to my fears a week ago I guess not.

While hardly like the harvests of yore things have picked-up a bit.

There is this...

And venison steaks on the grill tonight to accompany grilled spargel anointed in EVO and freshly-cracked black pepper and sea salt.  Maybe a big baked tater too.

Has Asparagus Ended?

I picked this today. There’s only a couple-three more peeking out of the warming earth. 

Nothing at all like I was picking every couple of days ten years ago.

I think that after two decades the spargel bed in the kitchen garden has finally come to its natural end.

When you’re as old as I am do you excavate and start over with the knowledge that it will be three more growing seasons before I can harvest?

I already am aware I should’ve started a second bed a decade ago so don't rub it in....

Vive le Jardin Magnifique!

It is raining today which is good.  It's even better that I got the garden tilled yesterday.

Spread eight bags of composted manure, four bales of peat moss along with a sprinkling of triple 19 fertilizer over the top and turned it all under with the rototiller.  A good all day light soak will settle it all together in preparation for a follow-up tilling and early planting of my cool weather crops; namely radishes, spinach and lettuces.

Cool weather you ask?  Yes, when you live halfway between the equator and North Pole recent overnight lows continue to hover around 40F.

The only hitch in this springtime ritual was a flat tire on the tiller.  It took awhile to get the bead to seat on the tubeless tire to inflate it.  Unremarkably, WD-40 fixes everything. 

Vive le Jardin Magnifique!

The Garden Chronicles

Some of you may have noticed that there not been much to say about the garden this yea.  A consequence of there almost wasn't a garden this year.  

All of this is a result of timing a European family vacation precisely during the critical three week window of planting and establishing a garden in our already short growing season.  And then there were the critters.  What I did plant the birds and ground squirrels while I was in England.  They ate my peas, my expensive sweet potato slips uniquely suited to our growing zone.  They ate the lettuce and radish plants too.  And the weeds took-over.  Thankfully a neighbor had my potted stock to tend until we returned from overseas.

Returning home, I weeded the entire shebang, replanted radishes, peas, four varieties of lettuce, four types of herbs, four sweet pepper plants and a dozen tomato plants.  The critters dug-up and ate a huge row of peas, one Italian parsley plant, three pepper plants, all the lettuce, and two of the tomato plants.  The weeds returned.

GAAAHHH!

What is left is doing OK, protected by cages, and I even picked some radishes this week.

I did not plant anything else as I was significantly behind schedule with a garden half-way between the equator and the north pole.  Fortunately, there are reserves of canned and frozen garden goodness in the basement bunker.

And it you can believe it there is this.

A massive tomato plant that emerged on its own from the composter.  It is ginormous.  The tomato plant that ate Toledo!  Not willing to kill it (just yet anyway) I want to see what manner of fruit it yields, if any.

Vive le Jardin Magnifique!

The Garden Chronicles

So begins another season of gardening.

The main garden has been topped-off with more soil and tilled.

The leeks have over-wintered and largely recovered from deer browse.  Leeks were new last year and starting their second season it's going to be real treat to begin the year with some home-grown alliums.

Rhubarb is coming on-line too!

Stop by periodically for a progress report and find out what's new for the 2024 growing season.

Vive le Jardin Magnifique!

The Garden Chronicles

The tomato avalanche has possibly begun to peter-out.  The nights are incredibly cooler and even the days not so hot any longer.

Nevertheless, we're eating these delectable fruits daily and canning them while I go.

Obtained from the Pioneer Pantry in Brussels This is my first year raising San Marzano tomatoes.  Tasty and plentiful!  I'll do these again.  Maybe even exclusively.

Come February ordinarily normal individual would commit high crimes and misdemeanors for fresh, homegrown tomatoes.

Seven pints of San Marzano sunshine!

Fruit Of The Vine

Tomato Avalanche!

Considering the crappy condition of the 2023 garden this is the second picking of tomatoes in 8 days.  These are beauties.

When you have real tomatoes you indulge your tomato itch.  In this case there was tomato pie. 

 

Homemade (sort of) crust, a layer of chopped sweet onions, with a layer of chopped San Marzano tomatoes, a layer of my fresh basil (chiffonade) topped with shredded Gruyère mixed with Duke’s mayonnaise. Three dashes of Tapatío for zing. 

 

Good chow.

 

Normal people would commit high crimes and misdemeanors for tomatoes like these by the time March 2024 rolls-around and Ma Nature is slinging sleet and snow at your windows.....

 

The Garden Chronicles

The year started with plenty of precipitation and then a drought settled-over the land for more than a month.  What managed to germinate at the second and third sowing withered and died for lack of a drink.  Let's face it, well water from my aquifer is a poor substitute for the stuff God distributes from the sky.  Things were looking grim until regular rains returned by the end of July.  We're still behind in the the seasonal growing period with a net shortfall but we've harvested green beans, cukes, sweet peppers and plenty of basil for brick oven pizzas.

Just the other day there was this:  Real San Marzano tomatoes along with big beefy beefsteak fruit and sweet yellow cherry-size tomatoes for daily snacking.  I'll likely have sufficient tomatoes to can for both pizza sauce and juice.

And sweet Northstar peppers too.

Check out this melon

It's been a rough year; nevertheless, sometimes you can delightfully turn the corner.  There are Kakai seed pumpkins growing on the vine along with a couple of rows of yummy-looking leeks.  Cukes are still producing.

Vive le Jardin Magnifique!

The Garden Chronicles

 

I have two hills of pumpkins.

The Kakai have blossomed!

Rain overnight.  In spite of the drought pumpkins spring eternal.....

Pea Picker

I picked peas this week.

 

Pretty good harvest considering the drought conditions.

And the bountiful harvest is largely a consequence of the pouches of deer and rabbit repellent hanging from my pea fence. The vines grew tall and strong and the ripening pods abundant.

 

While out there on my stool picking, Jill was snacking on the young, tender, emerging pea pods. Which leads-to the usual inspiration.  

 

Stir fry. 

 

It all starts with fresh-picked pea pods and grows from there.

 

I had everything else needed in the freezer, fridge and pantry.

 

The Pantry Warrior strikes again with shrimp stir-fry.....

Mis en place....

Hot fire on a gas range...

It all comes together quickly....

There is a double spoonful of basmati rice beneath all of that goodness...